Renju

It may not be considered proper for a go journal to devote space to
so demeaning a use of the board as five-in-a-row but the Ishi Press have
seen fit to devote their latest book to it. In some ways it's a bit like
learning go again, a new Japanese vocabulary, new tesujis - certainly
the Ishi Press seem to have recaptured some of the turgidity of some of
their earlier volumes on go. (The translator is not acknowledged.)

Despite having its rules carefully tuned to remove the first
player's advantage, Renju is not nearly such a deep and meaningful game
as go, but precisely because of that it is possible to become quite good
quite quickly. I would prefer not to take the game as seriously as the
authors obviously do, but their claim that the game is too deep ever to
be analysed by computer seems well worth chasing up. Anyone with a go
board looking for some light relief will find plenty of material in this
relatively slim volume to keep him amused for a while.

This article is from the
British Go Journal
Issue 54[1]
which is one of a series[2] of back issues now available on the web.

Last updated Thu May 04 2017. If you have any comments, please email the webmaster on web-master AT britgo DOT org.